Nation of laypeople needs experts, too

Lots of Americans have long tended to dislike intellectuals, but there’s a new disdain for experts that’s endangering the country, writes Tom Nichols at Foreign Affairs. “Americans too easily forget that the form of government under which they live was not designed for mass decisions about complicated issues. Neither, of course, was it designed for rule by a tiny group of technocrats or experts,” says Nichols, who warns that as the social contract in which laypeople and experts respect each other and their roles erodes, so does good decision making, and democracy.